SURE Architecture unveiled plans this week for a futuristic skyscraper that could house thousands of people and have its own ecosystem. The Endless City proposal has already won the Skyscrapers and SuperSkyscrapers Competition. The firm believes the skyscraper would be a great space saver for densely populated cities because it will allow them to expand upward instead of outward. Although still in the planning stage and without any guarantees it will ever be built, SURE has earmarked a plot of land just north of the City of London to build the vertical city. If completed, the Endless city could be as tall as 300 meters, close to London’s tallest building the Shard, and take up an area of 165,000 square meters.

The Minnesota Vikings announced last week that they plan to add $19.7 million to their contribution towards building a new stadium for the NFL team. Vikings Vice President Lester Bagley made the announcement at the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority (MSFA) meeting in Minneapolis alongside John Wood with Mortenson Construction and MSFA chair Michele Kelm-Helgen. The additional funding means the Minnesota Vikings have now contributed $526 million towards the new facility which has a total price tag of over a billion dollars. Lester Bagley announced that the extra funding was to counter the rising price of steel and ensure all of the items from the original plan were built on time. There is roughly 7,000 tons of steel in the stadium’s external shell. The steel was budgeted at $4,800 per ton but is now costing closer to $6,000 per ton.

A magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck the Napa Valley region on Sunday and injured at least 172 people. The earthquake left many cracked roads, damaged buildings, and broken wine bottles. The earthquake was the largest to hit the California Bay Area since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Safety inspectors have been working around the clock to check on the health of the area’s infrastructure.

North America's leader in geotechnical construction, Hayward Baker, recently announced that the New England office in the Providence Metro area received the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute's (PCI) Plant Certification Program. PCI certification program started in 1967 and it is awarded to facilities demonstrating production of quality precast and prestressed concrete products. Up to this day it includes over 280 certified plants.

Construction is currently underway on the country’s first multi-modal bridge that bans private cars. Instead of carrying private vehicle traffic, the bridge will carry MAX light rail trains, Portland’s streetcar line, city busses, and pedestrian and bike traffic. The decision to ban cars was made mostly because there is not an existing roadway on either side of the bridge. City planners did not want to ruin the redevelopment occuring along the river by carving it up with a new freeway on both sides. The city looked into having the MAX trains travel on the existing Hawthorne Bridge, but decided against that option despite most likely being cheaper than building a new bridge. The bridge, known as the Tilikum Crossing, is being constructed in Portland, Oregon and will be completed next year. The bridge will open for one day in early August for the 19th annual Providence Bridge Pedal and Stride. It will then close again until its official opening on September 12th.

Chicago Ironworker Danny Drozd has spent 13 years working on various jobs around the city of Chicago including the Trump Tower, McCormick Place, and other skyscrapers. He realized he had a tough time explaining to his friends what an ironworker does so he decided to attach a GoPro to his helmet one day and show what them what his day at work is like at his newest project. Last week he posted the video to Youtube and it already has 300,000 views.

If anyone is in the market for purchasing an old bridge here is your chance. Multnomah county in Oregon has put the 88-year-old Sellwood Bridge up for sale until September 12th. The bridge is Oregon's only bridge with a four-span continuous truss holding up the roadway and the only known highway bridge nationally with such distinction. Despite not being listed on the register of the National Register of Historic Places, simply qualifying to be on the list is enough to force the county to put the bridge up for sale. The National Historic Preservation Act states that Multnomah county must seek out potential buyers before they can demolish the bridge.